About my Blog


My name is Enda and welcome to my Blog. I live in Cork City, Ireland and work as an archaeologist and archaeological surveyor.

I am a keen photographer and from time-to-time I take photographs and add them to my wordpress. Recently I have been photographing and documenting disused school houses throughout Ireland. I am currently combining my research and photography into a new book expected by the early 2017. Feel free to follow my Blog if you would like to keep u-to-date publication news. …And do comment on or ask questions, share memories, and make suggestions of school houses to visit.

38 thoughts on “About my Blog”

  1. Enda, I enjoyed your blog very much and your photos are excellent. I especially liked your data and photos on the old Nat Schools, very sad. I am interested in local history, my native area S. Tipp. I now live in Cobh. I did some research on Nat Schools in the Newcastle area, old Gaeltacht. I am a retired Army Officer age 80. Good luck with your studies and your PhD, I have a grandson doing PhD, geology UCD.

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    1. Hi Brian! Thank you for taking the time to have a look at my blog. I really appreciate your feedback. South Tipperary is a great place. So many lovely villages that remain peaceful and pleasant. I’d love to hear more about your research. Could you send me your email address?

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  3. Hello Enda;

    I love your photos. I am an Irish American — my grandparents were born in Galway (Spiddal and Moycullen). On one of my visits to Ireland in the 1980’s — my father’s cousin (Mary Conneely – born in 1906) took us to the schoolhouse she attended (Knock near Spiddal) which was abandoned at the time. She told us how each child was responsible for bringing a brick of peat for the fire. She remembered the teacher would always have “her large rump up against the fireplace” to keep warm while the children were shivering. Mary came to the US in 1929 but returned to her village of Kilroe East when she retired in the early 1970’s. She lived until 2001 so the shivering did her no harm.

    Best of luck with your studies — I look forward to more photos.

    Pat Flaherty

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    1. Thanks Pat, thanks for the information and thank you for checking out the Blog. It seems like a common story. If you have anymore stories you’d like to share, feel free, or any more anecdotes from times gone by. …or any old school houses that you know of around Connemara that would be worth a visit. Many thanks,

      Enda

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  4. What a marvellous blog: I am so pleased that it has just been brought to my attention. The standard of both your text and photographs is really outstanding, congratulations and best wishes. I look forward to reading more.

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  6. A few suggestions of places you could visit in Cork/Kerry; very derelict national school 5km from Rylane on Rylane-Millstreet road, a recently disused but intact very large schoolhouse near Cullen village overlooking Mallow-Killarney road privately owned, think owners house it right next to it..plus an even older school is just a few yards further on on same side of road and a converted school maybe 6 km west of that point in Co Kerry on RHS of road plaque on building reads ‘Carrigaline National School’.

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  7. Hi Enda, so pleased to have found your blog and what a great job you’re doing. There are so many abandoned and forgotten schools all over the country – they urgently need recording, and your photographs are superb. I have recorded a few schools on the Sheep’s Head that you may not have found: http://www.sheepsheadplaces.net/historical-sites. Poor old Dunbeacon school won’t be here much longer.
    I’m trying to do something similar with holy wells and am trying to record all the ones in Cork : https://holywellsofcork.com/. It’s a big job but someone has to do it! The very best of luck with your research and I look forward to seeing what you discover.

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  9. Hi–Don’t know if you received my last email requesting any info on Anaglaive School, Knockavolis, near Castleblaney, Monaghan. I would be interested in any history, details, etc. about the school, which my ancestors attended. Thanks.

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  12. Hello, Enda. I too am an Irish-American. On a trip to visit the family in Leitrim and Longford in 2008 cousins took us to the schools where our grandfather (Leitrim) and grandmother (Longford) attended. I took photographs of each building – in Leitrim it was St. Patrick’s National School and in Longford I think the name of the school is Drumlish National School. How would I send you copies of these pictures?

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    1. Hi Joe! Thanks for getting in touch. That’s very good of you. Just drop me a line via the contact page on this blog and I’ll email you back. Also, I think I’ve photographed Drumlish NS- check under the Longford category for it! 🙂

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  14. My mother and her 7 brothers and sisters attended Brooklawn school Fartamore during the 1920’s+30s
    Thanks so much for your research the photos and records are really good to read and so evocative of a different era
    My mother said they used to take a piece of turf for the class fire in the cold winter months, she was a very bright, literate and intelligent woman
    I am attempting to research hoping to add to our family tree
    I’ve written to you via your contact page

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  15. Hello Enda, I am writing from western Canada. Thanks for the work you are doing. I am researching my family’s history. My grandfather was born in Drumlish, Co. Longford around 1880. Can you tell me what kind of school he would have attended? Were the schools segregated according to religion? Were there primary and secondary schools back then in small towns/villages? Any information you could give me would be most welcome.

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  17. Interesting article on women teachers. Are you aware of their influence in taking National Schools to the “colonies’? New South Wales adapted the N S model in 1848, followed by Queensland in 1860. National Teacher Margaret Berry from Naas, Co Kildare, and her sister Eliza, plus five other sisters, emigrated between 1854 and 1865 to NSW and/or Queensland. They never married, taught into their seventies, and with their sisters, brothers-in-law (also Irish National Teachers) plus their nieces and nephews, had an enormous influence on Queensland Education. Margaret was the first headmistress of the newly formed Brisbane ‘Normal’ (model school) for girls and trained thousands of teachers for the new schools opening in the new state. The first Inspector General in Queensland Randal McDonnell, was a National Teacher also, and former colleague of several of the sisters. Irish readers were printed and sent all over the world. Jo

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    1. Hi Jocelyn! This is wonderful information – I’d never heard this before, and thank you for sharing. Would you perhaps have a reference for this? Could you evening drop me a line via the Contact page so I can get your email address?

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  18. Hi Enda – what a great site! Very well presented. Congratulations; – and a BIG thanks for sharing so much with so many.
    In the late 1800s there was a schoolhouse in Muckcross (aka Muckruss) near Clonakilty. (Not to be confused with the more popular Muckross Schoolhouse, Killarney).

    I cannot find any information on the Muckcross, Clonakilty Schoolhouse. Any ‘pointers’ as to getting some history or otherwise?

    Best wishes,
    Michael.

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    1. Hi Micheal – that is intriguing – I’ve had a look at the historic mapping and there is nothing marked in the townland of Muckross, or in any of the other surrounding townlands. One potential location may be near the former church (marked on the 25-inch OS sheet) in the adjacent townland of Rineen? Do you have a source for the supposed school?

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      1. Hello Enda – I was mid-stream in a long reply, and everything seemed to get lost! Let me know if you got my message; – if not, I’ll compose it again; – thanks.

        Michael.

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  19. Your exercise is a commendable one and is something which should have been created years ago.
    I notice you have not included Co.Down yet. i suppose your busy life limits your endeavors.
    Tell me who would be the real owners of these ‘deserted’ places of early learning……

    Michael J Drake, Quoniamstown, Downpatrick, Co Down.

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    1. Hi Michael – thanks for getting in touch and for checking out the blog – true enough that there are no schools from Co. Down, but I’m hoping to change that in the coming months. Regarding the real owners; each case is different. Some are in private ownership, some held by the Church or a school board, and occasionally some are in state ownership.

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  20. Enda, did you get out to the remains of the Great Blasket school? I’m particularly interested in deserted island schools– in particular islands that are themselves now deserted. Spike Island school is also a prime example. When a people have left their old world and ways behind for the mainland, what image is more harrowing than the deserted school? Congrats on the fantastic work. Beannacht.

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  21. Hi Enda, I’ve love your photos and info about old national schools in Ireland. It’s so important to capture the history and heartwarming to see your dedication to doing so. I have been looking for the school my grandfather may have attended in Leitrim. He was born in Gorteendarah, Kinlough in 1884. Any thoughts you may have are very much appreciated.

    Best wishes,
    S. McElaney, Boston, USA

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  22. I have a few shots I have taken of old school buildings in areas I visit from time to time. I would be pleased to send them to you as attachments if I could have your e-mail address.

    I realize it is a monumental task for you to cover even a small county never mind the whole country of Ireland, so that is where all of us who are interested in this subject come in.

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  23. I have just happened upon your website during a trawl of websites on the history of education in these islands. I arrived here just after reviewing a very fine website on the architectural developments in the UK and the educational thinking that shaped them. I applaud what you are doing and I entirely endorse your view that these ‘vernacular’ buildings should be preserved and repurposed in a context that acknowledges their setting and story.

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Disused School Houses of Ireland